World leaders launched an ambitious attempt on Monday to hold back the earth's rising temperatures as they met in Paris.

Obama says climate change an economic, security imperative

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the world needs an enduring framework for addressing climate change and that he would seek an agreement that would boost economies as well as help the planet's environment.

"If we let the world keep warming as fast as it is and sea levels rising as fast as they are and weather patterns keep shifting in more unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic resources not to growing opportunity for our people but to adapting to the various consequences of the changing climate," he said at a press conference.

"This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now."

Obama says carbon price tag would drive innovation

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the best way to drive innovation and reduce carbon emissions is "to put a price on it" but he does not expect that from the current Republican-dominated U.S. Congress.

"If you put a price on it, then the entire market would respond," he told a news conference at the U.N. climate conference in Paris.

As people come to realize the costs of climate change, Obama said they will start to put a price tag on the damage it is doing. Insurance companies are beginning to realize that in terms of how they price risk, he said.

"It may be that the politics around setting up a cap-and-trade system, for example, shifts as well," he said. "Obviously I'm not under any illusion that this Congress will impose something like that."